The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is to hold a series of commemorative events to mark the 75th anniversary of Taiwan’s retrocession on Sunday, including a concert that would be attended by several former KMT chairpeople, it said yesterday.
KMT Culture and Communications Committee director-general Alicia Wang (王育敏) told a news conference in Taipei that on Oct. 25, 1945, Taiwan “officially returned to the domain of the Republic of China and cast off Japanese colonization.”
“Taiwan’s retrocession is a day that is very worth commemorating,” she said.
Photo: Lin Liang-sheng, Taipei Times
“However, now we see that the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] administration does not even commemorate [it] anymore,” she added.
At a time when the DPP administration says that the People’s Republic of China should not hold Retrocession Day activities, it should organize activities of its own to show that the day “is meaningful only when commemorated in the Republic of China,” Wang said.
The KMT has invited Mainland Affairs Council officials and President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to a commemorative concert, but they turned down the requests, she said.
The National Policy Foundation, a think tank affiliated with the KMT, is to hold a seminar today to discuss the significance of Taiwan’s retrocession in areas including society, culture, economics, politics and national defense, as well as the role that the KMT played before and after the retrocession, the party said.
The seminar is to be moderated by KMT Deputy Secretary-General Huang Kwei-bo (黃奎博), it said.
Tomorrow, the KMT is to launch an online exhibition featuring historical materials and photographs preserved by the party related to the retrocession, it said.
A commemorative concert focusing on local songs performed in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) is to begin at 2:30pm on Sunday, Wang said.
Several former KMT chairmen — including former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), former vice president Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) — are scheduled to attend, she said.
Singers Chi Lu-hsia (紀露霞) and Liu Fu-chu (劉福助) are to perform at the event, the party said.
“Taiwan Retrocession Day is an important historical link between the Republic of China and Taiwan,” the KMT said in a statement.
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